Pink Sauce

Deep Water is an Australian murder mini-series (4 episodes) currently available on Netflix. Despite being set in Sydney (around Bondi Beach), this is in many ways one of those dark, brooding serial-killer stories, recently popularised by the "scandi-noir" genre, although Detective Tori Lustigman (played by Yael Stone, of Orange is the New Black fame) is thankfully not quite as tortured as so many of her nordic colleagues. She is, in fact, a fairly-straight-forward, tough woman on a mission, which, in its own way, is quite refreshing. The story is complex, the writing is tight and the performances are first class; all coming together to form a gripping and tense, sometimes even moving, thriller. However, what could easily have been a slightly formulaic, if not predictably stereotypical, plot, also functions as an unflinching and often disquieting exposition of homophobia that feels grounded in historical truth. Its various and numerous guises, as well as its manyfold cons...

Uprising on BBC iPlayer is a three-part documentary series, directed by Steve McQueen, centered around the New Cross Fire in January 1981, in which 13 black youths died at a house party. The event took place in a context of heightened racial tensions, only a few months before the Brixton Riots and other violent protests across Britain (England, really, it seems), which are also covered in the programme. The documentary presents archival footages and testimonies from survivors of the fires, their family, and civil rights activists, to create a powerful, moving, and sometimes shocking, narrative of grief, lives upturned, social injustice, racism, and institutional callousness. Although stark in its simplicity and never sentimental, it is a gripping piece of cinematic storytelling, vividly bringing to life a dark moment in the history of the country, exactly 40 years on. Stunning, in every way.

I discovered Good Trouble, a spin off another series I haven't seen (The Fosters), by chance, lurking on iPlayer. The show is in its third season and is, to be frank, a wet dream of wokeness. Gammons should stay well clear of this or their already congested heads will most definitely explode. The show covers pretty much ever subject that would make the average Dail Mail reader froth at the mouth at the very thought of them: from feminism and the gender pay gap, to polyamory, bisexuality, lesbian adopting parents, gender non-conformity, body image, left-wing policies, or systemic racism and black lives matter (two of the movement's founders actually play themselves in several episodes). It's queer, it's diverse, it's inclusive. And what is great about it is that it doesn't wallow. Yes, things can be bad but it is first and foremost an affirming and empowering show, where, in a world that, let's face, isn't always understanding and welcoming (to say the...